Anyone want to help me come up with a theme night?

[la79al]

Every year when we go to the beach with our more extended family, I do one theme night. It started out as a way to keep the kids busy and let the adults have a break and over the years has morphed to something that everyone looks forward to. We generally tie it into a dinner and then I come up with some little activities for the kids. There may or may not be a little costume sort of tie in. For example last year we did Mexican night complete with tacos, a pinata, a hunt for treasure, sugar skull painting and little paper sombreros. The year before we did Christmas in July with our traditional Christmas dinner, a saran wrap ball and decorating cookies. I need some epic ideas for this year. The kids are getting bigger (9 of them between 5 and 16 and then a 2 year old) so I feel like our years of doing this may be limited. Any great ideas?

 

[first*toright]

I love this! What a fun thing to do for your fam! We throw a party every fall and I build kids activities around some theme every year (generally ending with clues they have to solve to find goodie bags at the end). What is a saran wrap ball? I haven't heard of that?

How about Olympic themed - could do greek style food, then beach themed "Olympic" games.

Superbowl (or world series) themed? Game-night or ballpark style food, sports trivia games, a draft to pick teams for some kind of family competition, jerseys for everyone to wear.

Mad scientist themed - funky colored/weird shaped foods & drinks, science experiment activities. You can buy cheap paper lab coats/glasses on ebay. A blacklight and colored liquids go along way towards creating a mad scientist's lair. Puzzles/simple math games go well with this one.

Looking forward to seeing other peoples ideas!

 

[QueenIsabella]

Caribbean theme seems obvious (or Hawaiian). Could be fun, though--fruity drinks with umbrellas, steel drum music, limbo... A pirate theme could tie in to this nicely.

Other possibilities:

Mardi Gras
April Fool's Day
Halloween
Tie-Dye (wearing it, if you don't feel like making something)
Mystery--solve a "crime" or find a treasure

Fun games/activities to consider:

water balloon volleyball
scavenger hunt
Escape room?
Make-your-own pizza

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Shrek - Pin the tail on Donkey, frost gingerbread man cookies, swamp/fairy tale themes

Alice in Wonderland - tea party, croquet, garden themes

 

[cabanafrau]

Spooky summer - summer twist on Halloween -- let the kids construct a jack-o-lantern pinata, egg & spoon race with ping pong balls decorated up as eyes, figure out a variation on trick or treat possibly with water balloons, costume contest with the twist of make it yourself/with parent help from non traditional materials, not store bought or pre-made.

Wicked summer/Eras tour -- If Wicked, Taylor or something else suits the interests of your group you can probably adapt appropriate ideas from other themes

Talent show -- teams compete to make costumes, do hair and makeup, sing a song and/or perform a choreographed dance. Nothing has to be elaborate or stage worthy. Costumes can be created from kits you assemble ahead of time with affordable items from the dollar store or party supply store -- crepe paper, disposable table cloths, party hats, silly glasses, etc. Give points for creativity of costumes, construction of costumes, best hair/makeup, best on theme for costumes or hair/makeup, most committed vocal performance, etc., etc. The more you structure the scoring towards silly and away from "talent" the more fun it will likely be.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Italian? You could have everyone make their own pizza.

Or you could have a slumber party theme with PJs. You could do breakfast for dinner and make-your-own sundaes.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Thinking of something doable and not too expensive, I was thinking Disco/Return to the 70s...

Fondue for the food - all kids love cheese and bread (add whatever else you want to the dippers) and chocolate and fruit, so lots of fun food...you can add jello shots for adults and nonalcoholic ones for kids if you really want to adopt the 70s...and if you hate the idea of fondue, disco fries were also a thing...

Get a disco ball and old records from a thrift store and make a 70s musical playlist to get ready.

Let the kids craft bead necklaces, 70s inspired headbands, wacky sunglasses, or peace sign necklaces for them to wear as you throw a dance party after. And if so inclined, break out roller skates to really make it a 70s event.

 

[Travel60]

Loving all the ideas (and may steal a few)!
How about a sports or Olympic theme? Age appropriate sports tasks (throwing a ball, hiking a football, 3 legged race, etc.) then tie in some sports trivia. Appetizers/food could follow a tailgate theme

 

[BCPKnight]

Every year when we go to the beach with our more extended family, I do one theme night. It started out as a way to keep the kids busy and let the adults have a break and over the years has morphed to something that everyone looks forward to. We generally tie it into a dinner and then I come up with some little activities for the kids. There may or may not be a little costume sort of tie in. For example last year we did Mexican night complete with tacos, a pinata, a hunt for treasure, sugar skull painting and little paper sombreros. The year before we did Christmas in July with our traditional Christmas dinner, a saran wrap ball and decorating cookies. I need some epic ideas for this year. The kids are getting bigger (9 of them between 5 and 16 and then a 2 year old) so I feel like our years of doing this may be limited. Any great ideas?

A luau would be fun. You could buy a bunch of leis, learn to hula, serve drinks with pineapple...yum! Plus the food would be mostly a barbeque, so it would be pretty easy to set up.

 

[easyas123]

I like the make your own pizza one -

Others I could think of would be a Harry Potter or LOTR /Hobbit themed evening.

 

[MICKIMINI]

Thinking of something doable and not too expensive, I was thinking Disco/Return to the 70s...

Fondue for the food - all kids love cheese and bread (add whatever else you want to the dippers) and chocolate and fruit, so lots of fun food...you can add jello shots for adults and nonalcoholic ones for kids if you really want to adopt the 70s...and if you hate the idea of fondue, disco fries were also a thing...

Get a disco ball and old records from a thrift store and make a 70s musical playlist to get ready.

Let the kids craft bead necklaces, 70s inspired headbands, wacky sunglasses, or peace sign necklaces for them to wear as you throw a dance party after. And if so inclined, break out roller skates to really make it a 70s event.

My thought and I can't believe anyone who survived it is thinking about this LOL!!

 

[MICKIMINI]

Parisian ala berets, mime, pastries...

Toga party? Rated G of course!

 

[Kelandsam]

My friend group gets together every 3 months for a movie night with the families. Once the movie is picked each family is assigned a color and item to do that ties back to the movie. For our Twister movie, I got brown and entree. I did crockpot beef tips with Merlot sauce. My friend got pink and kid activity and did pin the tail on the pink cow.

 

[Kelandsam]

I forgot, I also got Starbucks coffee bottles and little kahlua bottles for the adults. Brown and tied into the movie where Jo bought the coffee at the drive in.

 

[Wayland10]

You’re at the beach, so Pirates and Mermaids seems like an obvious idea! Or do your own Renaissance Fair- make cone hats or masks, turkey legs on the grill. You can blow up long balloons and “sword fight”.
Hmmmm… or board game night- with that age group spread you could do Dixit, Cards Against Humanity Family Edition, Apples to Apples, or Ticket to Ride First Voyage.

Or …. Ooh, Paleo Party! Chalk cave art, lawn darts with sabretooth tiger drawings as targets, caveman (and woman!) face painting, big steaks and “mammoth” burgers!

 

[mmouse37]

You’re at the beach, so Pirates and Mermaids seems like an obvious idea! Or do your own Renaissance Fair- make cone hats or masks, turkey legs on the grill. You can blow up long balloons and “sword fight”.
Hmmmm… or board game night- with that age group spread you could do Dixit, Cards Against Humanity Family Edition, Apples to Apples, or Ticket to Ride First Voyage.

Or …. Ooh, Paleo Party! Chalk cave art, lawn darts with sabretooth tiger drawings as targets, caveman (and woman!) face painting, big steaks and “mammoth” burgers!

This was my thought....Pirates or Mermaids!!

I have a list of all Pirate named foods that I serve at our pirate pre cruise parties!



Chicken Cutlass Parm
Yo Ho Ho Hot Dogs
Walk the Plank Flank Steak
Pieces of Eight Pasta
Shiver Me Timbers Tomato/Mozzarella Salad
Garrrrden Green Salad
Treasure Chest Chicken Wings
Captain Jack Black Bean Salad
Pirate Gold Nuggets
Barnacles in a Blanket


Buccaneer Brownies
Ship Ahoy Cookie Cake
Blue Jello with sails
Pirate Gold - all gold candy like rolos, ferrera roche, Gold hershey nuggets


Fruit Punch
Rum
Beer
Wine
Swashbuckling Punch